- Edelman promotes Robert Phillips to EMEA president and CEO. Hill & Knowlton's global CEO Paul Taaffe resigns following the merger with US public affairs shop Public Strategies.

FEBRUARY

- Modus Publicity comes under fire for its use of unpaid interns after a BBC documentary on social mobility is aired.

- Travel comms specialists including Hills Balfour's sister agency HB Portfolio and Rooster deal with the fallout from the political turmoil in holiday destinations Egypt and Tunisia.

- The Business Finance Taskforce, comprising six major banks, hires Portland to help win back the trust of small businesses following the financial crisis. By November, funding for the campaign is cut as banks focus on their individual comms efforts.

- The head of BBC Global News Craig Oliver is appointed as Downing Street's director of comms, replacing Andy Coulson.

- PRWeek announces it will no longer accept AVEs as a method of measurement in its awards.

- The ballot for London 2012 Olympic Games tickets is opened.

APRIL

- Prince William marries Kate Middleton. The wedding is watched by an estimated two billion people worldwide.

- Mark Borkowski severs all ties with his own agency after becoming disillusioned with the traditional consultancy model. Borkowski PR rebrands as Beige, while Borkowksi sets up Borkowski.do.

- The BBC announces it will abolish six senior comms roles as part of a programme to make 25 per cent cuts. Amid the cuts, a wave of senior BBC journalists move into PR, including Andy Tighe, who joins the Home Office as head of news, and Nils Blythe, who becomes interim comms head at the Bank of England.

- Bell Pottinger's controversial work for the Economic Development Board of Bahrain is suspended as violent uprisings break out in the country. Sister agency Good Relations wins Subway and the European account for Research in Motion.

- BBC broadcaster Andrew Marr voluntarily admits to using a super-injunction as the debate over privacy and the role of social media ramps up.

MAY

- The White House releases dramatic photos of President Obama and Hillary Clinton watching Osama bin Laden being shot dead by US commandos.

- Several newspapers break a super-injunction naming a famous footballer who allegedly had an extra-marital affair with model Imogen Thomas.

- PRWeek's Top 150 Consultancies 2011 report reveals the PR industry has bounced back from the recession with a growth rate of nearly ten per cent in 2010.

- News emerges that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is considering borrowing press officers from Whitehall's comms units to man an Olympics press office in 2012.

- Nokia hires a consortium of Next Fifteen agencies to handle its global PR work, and is also thought to be using Freud Communications for a significant project brief.

- The News of the World is closed. A number of NotW journalists approach PR agencies for jobs. Two of News International's most senior executives, Simon Greenberg and Will Lewis, leave the newspaper group to work on News Corporation's 'hackgate' clean-up project.

- The Department of Health's top communicator Sian Jarvis resigns as the department undergoes a restructure. She later joins Asda to oversee its PR and public affairs.

- PRWeek's 2010 Consultancy of the Year Mischief PR is sold to Engine Group for a mix of cash and equity.

- After a long trawl, Edelman hires the BBC's director of comms Ed Williams to be its UK CEO.

- Tesco bolsters its PR and lobbying capability by hiring the Olympic Delivery Authority's media head Tom Curry as UK comms director, and Victoria Gould, Tony Blair's head of events and visits, as government affairs manager, as the Government conducts a review into the future of the high street.

- Riots, mainly by young people, flare up around the country. Shops including Poundland, JD Sports and Currys are looted. Brands such as BlackBerry and Nike find themselves linked to the chaos. Politicians are criticised for not returning from holiday sooner.

- Mobile phone giant Everything Everywhere is in final talks with GolinHarris and Weber Shandwick as it prepares to hand out a big chunk of its £1m PR brief.

- The globe's second largest alcohol brewer, SABMiller, kicks off a major corporate pitch process after splitting with Brunswick.

- Boots drops retained agency Lexis and hands the £1m brief to The Red Consultancy. The move triggers the most significant case of the TUPE ruling in the PR industry since it became law in 2006, as Lexis asks eight members of staff to transfer to Red.

- A month after the riots, Adidas hires John Doe to boost its fashion and lifestyle credentials.

- TalkTalk awards a six-figure brief to Good Relations and Pelham Bell Pottinger.

- The Government sets up a specialist 'partnerships unit' in the Cabinet Office to improve comms with businesses, paving the way for new marketing and PR tie-ups.

- Seventy Seven PR's three managing partners leave to start new projects. Alan Twigg sets up his own consultancy, called The Light Brigade. James Gordon-MacIntosh and Jo Carr set up consumer shop Hope & Glory, backed by corporate and financial agency Lansons Communications.

OCTOBER

- Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, dies after a long illness.

- Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is killed.

- PRWeek and the PRCA launch a campaign to end the practice of unpaid internships, backed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

- The PRCA and the CIPR go head-to-head in their bid to represent the UK's PR professionals, as the PRCA launches individual membership.

- The lobbying industry is criticised after Defence Secretary Liam Fox resigns over allegations he gave close friend and lobbyist Adam Werritty access to the MoD and took him on foreign trips.

- Private equity firm Vitruvian Partners takes a small majority stake in College Group, which includes City PR agency College Hill.

- The Department of Health puts a £85,000 per month PR brief up for grabs, which covers major comms programmes - Smokefree/Tobacco Control, the Change4Life obesity campaign, Older People and Younger People.

- Santander searches for a PR agency to help it become a more integral part of corporate Britain. Meanwhile, HSBC looks for an agency as it plans to set up a new online platform for customers' non-financial needs.

- Umbro hunts for a consumer PR agency to help cement it as the UK's top football kit brand.

- TripAdvisor hires Edelman to handle its UK comms, as it continues to face scrutiny about the credibility of its reviews.

- Andrew Gowers, the former Financial Times editor, joins investment banking trade body Association for Financial Markets in Europe, as a comms consultant on a three-month contract.